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8" Chinese Laptop

A tiny 8“ Intel-based laptop from China that comes in a box with no description and can be bought for very cheap on Amazon and AliExpress. It's the pinnacle of modern computing, the successor to the VAIO P-series, the closest thing that we can have to a modern HPC.

Fixing the keyboard

Upon closer inspection you will notice that, due to it's tiny size, the keyboard layout is absolutely insane. Not only that, but some decisions regarding the button placement are absolutely maddening. To fix these issues under X11, the following can be added to the ~/.xmodmap file:

clear lock
keycode 66 = Tab
keycode 23 = Caps_Lock
keycode 22 = Delete
keycode 119 = BackSpace

If you're on Wayland, use Input Remapper to easily remap the keys listed above.

Fixing rotated console

Upon first boot you will notice that the boot logs are rotated to the vertical position, since the firmware of this laptop is most likely based on a tablet form-factor. This makes no sense, so change the following in the /etc/defaults/grub to make the boot console landscape:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="fbcon=rotate:1"

Don't forget to run update-grub for the changes to actually take effect.